The present invention relates to a display apparatus for a visual communication system, and more particularly to the display apparatus for visual communication system which includes a digital signal processor(DSP) for digital video data signal and analog audio signal processing and sends the resultant data to a host through a universal serial bus (USB) hub interface.
Referring to FIGS. 1 and 2, a conventional computer system for a visual communication is illustrated. In this computer system, a monitor 20 is connected to a host (computer) 10 via universal serial bus (USB) cable 22 and the keyboard 70, mouse 60, microphone 50, speakers 40 and 42 and camera 30 are all connected to host 10 via respective cables. An analog video signal acquired from an analog camera 30 is converted into digital video data and is composed of an international standard form video data signal for the visual communication by an image capture device 15 included in host 10. The analog audio signal acquired from microphone 50 is also composed of an international standard form audio signal for the visual communication by a sound controller 14 included in the host 10. These video and audio signals are compressed and decompressed for visual communication and transmitted through a communication interface unit 16, such as a modem. The computer system converts these analog video and audio signals into these digital video and audio data by these analog-to-digital converting devices such as the sound controller 14 and the image capture device 15 included in the system, and converts received digital and audio data to corresponding analog signals for output via display unit 20 and speakers 40 and 42, respectively. Since the system has overlapping these data conversion devices, cost and data loss are increasing in the several process of data conversion. Furthermore, since the system has complex connecting lines between peripheral devices and the host unit 10 in the analog data transmission processing, the system has much noise in the data signal.
Examples of a display apparatus for a visual communication system which includes universal serial bus (USB) architecture are provided by U.S. Pat. No. 5,797,028 to Dale E. Gulick et al. entitled Computer System Having An Improved Digital And Analog Configuration, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,818,948 to Dale E. Gulick entitled Architecture for A Universal Serial-Based Speaker Controller. 
It is therefore an object of the present invention to solve the above mentioned problems and to provide a display apparatus for a visual communication system which is capable of direct processing of these digital video and audio data signals.
It is another object of the invention to solve the above mentioned problems and to provide a display apparatus for the visual communication system which is capable of providing of these digital video and audio data signals through a USB system.
In order to attain the above objects, according to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a digital camera for generating a digital video data signal, a memory for storing the digital video data signal and a digital signal processor(DSP) for controlling the digital camera operation and a read/write operation of the memory while controlling the digital video data signal transference between the memory and the host.
According to another aspect of this invention, there is provided a USB control unit for controlling the digital video data signal transmission between the host and the DSP through at least one USB hub port.
In the display apparatus for the visual communication system according to the invention, the DSP receives directly the digital video data signal acquired from the digital camera and the audio data signal acquired from a microphone through the USB hub.
Furthermore, in the display apparatus, the DSP transfers these video and audio data signals to the host through the USB hub system with a parallel or serial format, which data signals are converted by an A/D converter and a D/A converter.
An advantage of this invention is that it avoids overlapping data conversion devices such as a sound controller and an image capture device and avoids complex connection between the host and these peripheral devices.
Further advantage of this invention is that it executes the visual communication with clearer data directly by the DSP through the USB hub.